Jubilee Festival set for this weekend in Daphne

DAPHNE, Alabama -- The 22nd annual Jubilee Festival, showcasing 74 artists this year, is set to begin Saturday with the unveiling of a historical marker proclaiming the city’s history from its earliest days in the 1700s.

Guy Busby/Baldwin RegisterVisitors stroll among the arts and crafts booths on Main Street in Daphne during last yearâs Jubilee Festival. The 22nd annual festival will open Saturday and continue through Sunday

Mayor Fred Small will conduct the ceremony in front of City Hall at the marker that is mounted nearthe bronze statue of the nymph Daphne.

"The governor declared this the year of small towns and downtowns, and the Jubilee Festival is a great time to celebrate our downtown," Small said.

The event in recent years has drawn more than 30,000 people, said Ginger Parnell, coordinator of the Eastern Shore Chamber of Commerce, which organizes the event.

The festival is scheduled from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Artist booths will be arranged along Main Street, while children’s activities will take place in Centennial Park and a performance stage will be set up in front of City Hall.

Admission is free.

During kids activities in Centennial Park, children will be able to create fish prints, string beads, make wood sculptures and — most importantly — help create new artwork that will span part of the park’s fence. Since 1999 the city of Daphne has allowed the children at the Jubilee Festival to paint their own works of art on the fence surrounding the back of the park.

The collage will remain on the fence year-round, Parnell said. Each year, about 30 feet of the fence is painted. Ticketsto participate in children’s activitiesare 25 cents each and most activities require one or two tickets, organizers said.

An important feature of the festival is that artists participate in a juried competition. A panel this year will select the winners of 12 honors during the festival, for a total of $2,300 in cash awards, Parnell said. The largest, the "best of show" award, carries a $750 prize.

Music and dance performances are scheduled each day from the festival’s start to its end.

On the stage at City Hall, entertainment will include music from the Johnny No Band, Mobile singer Vickie Bailey and "Capt. Lee" Lindblom, the "one man band" from Elberta.

Also featured will be performances from Susan’s Academy of Dance, the Moonlight Chassé Ballroom Dance Society and Mobile’s Baklava Bellydance group.

The Jubilee Festival was created as a way to combine business, tourism and fun while showcasing the city of Daphne.

The first planning committee selected the name Jubilee Festival based on the strange jubilee phenomenon that occurs when certain conditions deprive Mobile Bay of oxygen, causing bottom-dwelling marine life to scamper toward the shoreline.

Antiques were featured during the first Jubilee Festival, held in November 1989. During that first year, Main Street was transformed into an Antiques Alley with 60 vendor booths.

In addition to antiques, there were arts and crafts booths as well as food and entertainment.

Much of this continues, except that antiques are no longer featured. Today, the Jubilee Festival has become an Eastern Shore tradition.

Small said the historical marker is one of many presented by the state to towns all over Alabama this year.

As part of the state’s award-winning "year of" campaigns, Gov. Bob Riley proclaimed 2010 "The Year of Alabama Small Towns and Downtowns."

Other communities in Baldwin County have marked the event with founder’s day celebrations, historic tours, homecoming weekends and dedications of completed civic projects along with the unveiling of historic markers provided by the Alabama Tourism Department.

Riley had previously declared 2008 the Year of Alabama Sports and 2009 the Year of Alabama History.

The city of Daphne’s marker to be revealed Saturday reads, in part, "In 1763, the community of Daphne was known simply as "the Village." The town was officially established on April 9, 1874, and named by the first postmaster’s wife after the laurel tree which was also called Daphne."

In Greek myth, the river nymph Daphne was pursued by Apollo, the god of poetry and song. But she spurned his love and ran from him in the forest. When she could not escape, she begged the gods to save her and she was turned into a laurel tree. Apollo vowed that if Daphne could not be his wife, then the laurel would be his tree.

For more information call the Eastern Shore Chamber of Commerce at 251-621-8222, or visit the festival’s homepage online at www.eschamber.com.